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As some of you may have noticed, I’ve not posted here this last week. Life, of the most unfortunate type, sometimes happens, and I am glad to be writing again.

Not this Saturday, but the one previous, I went to a tournament, one of the Store Wars series that I’ve been participating in for some 5 months. Our Team, the Titanic Bastards, has been doing Ok, winning the first tournament and nipping at the heals of the winners ever since. I Captained the first event, and then was out for the next three. This month, though, the first real tournament of 3rd edition, I was looking forward to some solid, competitive games.

moving has been much more tedious than I expected. Many complications have prevented me from writing, notably loosing the power cord for my monitor and the entirety of my mouse. I’ll be writing again as soon as I can, hopefully for Thursday!

Every year, I head out to lock and load, and this year is no different. I’ll be playing in the final games of MKII masters, the last MKII spelldraft, and a late night Team Tournament as well. I look forward to playing a whole pile of games to round out the end of one edition and the start of another.

I’ll be posting to Instagram and Twitter as I get the chance! I’ll have an article on my experience and first thoughts of MK II on the 16th!

One of the most enjoyable aspects of playing XCOM, at least for me, is the punishing difficulty levels. Unlike my initial fears, this game is turning out to be at least as challenging as its predecessor, and will quite likely outstrip it as either Retaliation/Second Wave or Expansion packs come out for it. What I initially took for soft is, instead the plush outer coating of a grenade wrapped in velvet, and once you’ve cut off the skin, there is no going back.

What happened to my second game is testament to this concept, and one of the key reasons I keep coming back to this and Enemy within. Amusingly enough I keep having the voice of Illidan run through my head.

You are not prepared.

Be forewarned. There may be light spoilers ahead, but mostly about gameplay, less about story.

Four years ago I joined the Privateer Press Gang, and the first day of work as a PG was at the NOVA open. Each year it marks both the end of my convention season and my anniversary as a PG. This year, and many others, will also mark the anniversary of my first Convention as an official PP Judge. As you can see, NOVA means a lot to me, and I love watching the Warmachine and Hordes population there explode, as well as the population of the convention as a whole.

This year, for the first time, the Convention is set to sell over 1000 tickets, and Warmachine and Hordes are extremely likely to sell over 100 individual tickets. While some places see this as a slow year, I’m extremely excited. each year has nearly doubled its attendance, and this year, while a stretch, could do the same. It blows my mind to see the players from the Norther Virginia, Baltimore, Philly, NYC, New Jersey metas and even beyond make the trip to DC to throw down.

The Brawltimore Tournament Circuit has been going for about 6th months now, and I could not be happier with the results. We’ve had over a hundred people attend more than a score of events run by nearly a dozen different pressgangers. Attendance at tournaments has increased, and most stores are seeing a sizable increase in the warmachine playing community on a weekly basis.

And, because I’m a great big nerd, I’ve been grabbing and analyzing the data from the events all along.

So, without further ado, I present an analysis of the Brawltimore Meta.

Well. Thats a big chart.

That is ever caster, in every list, from every Podium Tournament (ie one that grants bigger points for 1st -3rd), broken down by how many lists were written. Now, I know its not a graphical representation of how many times each list was used, but I do think that its a good way to see what is big, by Faction.

Things of note here, that I find interesting.

Each faction has around 13 casters, now. of those nearly half a represented for every faction.

Special Consideration to Trollbloods, Skorne Convergeance and Retribution, who each have only one caster left off the list (Borka 1, Makeda 3, Aurora and Vyros 1)

Skorne seems to have the flattest curve, bolstered by the greatest number (56) of lists being represented

Butcher 3 represents nearly 40% of all written Khador Lists

There are more Pig Casters Used (4) than Gator (3)

Cygnar is the least diverse faction.

Really, I see that pretty much every faction comse at this with a greater than 50% stable, so I have to be prepared for pretty much anything, from Butcher 3 all the way down the line to Morghoul 2

But lets take that a little bit further. Lets see what I am most likely to face, overall.

well, if I am looking to prepare lists, I really, really want to make sure I have an answer for Butcher 3. He’s a menace to society, and also to the Baltimore Region. I’ve also got to prepare for Kreuger2, Bradigus, Asphyxious 2, Skarre 1, Damiano and Harbinger. I have to prepare for tons upon tons of troopers. I don’t think the top contenders here are really a surprise to anyone, except that maybe Deneghra 2 (6 instances) and Calandra ( 4 instances) are not as popular.

Its an interesting digest of who is being played, and how often, at the tournaments in the area. 438 lists in 6 months.

But, beyond that, though, there are two interlinked graphs:

This is how many players, and how many times those players have shown up to a tournament. There have been 15 tournaments, so its telling me that I have a fair shot of seeing 2 or more of Circle, Khador, Skorne and Cryx, and a decent chance of one of each of the rest. However, It could be any of a multitude of players for the top factions. Minions, however, are almost always represented, and will only be one of two players. Knowing who you’re gonna play against can be an edge!

This next one intruges me, because it shows me the popularity of the above factions over time.

There has been a recent surge in Trollbloods, after a pretty anemic start, and a winding down of Circle after a pretty strong showing throughout. Khador, while remaining strong, has started to wane a bit, though I’d expect that that’ll tick up as soon as Zerkova and Ruin are released. Ret, though, you almost never see, and Convergence is very hit or miss.

Finally, I have the per-tournament attendance, by faction. While its interesting data, I’m not sure its very useful. people availability really can cramp a single tournaments attendance. But there are solid masses of Red (Khador and Skorne) and Green (Cryx and Circle) in ever pole. It simply reenforces what I’ve learned prior: Plan for Butcher 3, Asphyxious 2, Kreuger 2, and Bradigus,

What other type of data would you like to see on our meta? What do you think of what’s up here?

While I was out at Lock and Load, I was able to pick up a box of Croak Raiders to bolster both my Minions force, and to potentially play with a Skorne caster or two.

These Bad Boys

Acquiring these became even more beneficial when I left the whole of my Skorne army in Seattle, and needed to have it shipped home, something its in the process of as I write this. Without Skorne, which I have been focusing on this year, to purloin my time, I needed something else to play for last weeks game night. With the Croak Raiders in my bag, I pulled them out and hastily assembled them, dojoing lists for them in my head over and over.

They all kept coming back to the same place: Barnabus. He’s got a knockdown feat, and there isn’t anything a ranged unit cavorts gleefully at than a caster who’s got knockdown on tap. Here, though, I run into trouble. The list I built was something like this:

The Concept here was to have the Gatorman Posse take the brunt of the action until the Trogs come in, have the Trogs overwhelm the edges, and get an assassination via knockdown with the Croak Hunters, and the Raiders. Lurking in the back would be Barnabus and the Spitter, looking to finish out anything causing problems.

I was really confident of the concept when I built the list, and though I thought it has some weaknesses, I was willing to move forward into the testing phase of list design. My first opponent was scheduled to be Cryx, which is fine, as I’ve played them myself for an extremely long period of time. There was a predicament, though, in that I know the guy likes to run Incorporeal models, and the list above has no solution ready for them.

I pondered the issue for a bit before realizing that I might want to try a bit stronger list against Incorp against Cryx, and that list would be steered by none other than our Gator Queen, Jaga-Jaga. I felt like I was teching, though, and that made me sad. In the end, he and I decided that we were going to bring 2 lists from now on, get better at list-selection.

Unfortunately that game was cancelled: I was violently ill and couldn’t make it out to the game store until Thursday, when I met up with some friends of mine at the shop in Bel Air. I was trying very hard to get two games in that day, and I may have pushed my luck a little far, as the first game intruded on the start time of the second much deeper than I would have liked, which made the end of the second game hurry-hurry itself. Next time, I do only one game.

First game of the night was against a the newly minted Cephalyx ‘Caster, Cyphon. I lent him both the models and the list, so it was based on the Cephalyx Army i built over the course of months of testing, just swapping out the caster and adding a Machine Wraith to cover the extra point.

I knew my second game was going to be against a friend of mine who plays the Protectorate, and has a huge love of both colossals and Feora 2. I knew, almost exactly, what was coming, due to the battle report against him last week.

If you’re astute, you’ll have noticed what I noticed when I was thinking about the list I had conceived and how it was going to play out. All week, there was this sense of terror and foreboding as to how I was going to actually win these games using Barnabus:

Skarre + Incorp or Denny + Incorp will wreck everything I have, as the only Magical Weapons carried by the army are Barnabus’ Axe, Flesh Eater the spell, and the Gatorman Witch Doctors sacrificial Strike.

Cyphon Cannot be knocked down, and has both shield guard and sacrificial pawn to help him live through a withering barrage of Flaming Darts, bu I’ll have to be hitting him at his full def. 13 because he cannot be knocked down. Now, its not a stellar defense, but it is enough to make about 45% of the attacks miss, which’ll keep him alive.

Epic Feora is immune to fire, which is extremely good for making sure she survives against the ‘Raiders. Compound that with the Choirs Warding and the Hand of Judgments Immunity to Fire, and I have a caster that I’m not sure I can assassinate. Mostly, though, It was the Revelator, who I was unable to take off the the board without committing Barnabus, I wasn’t really looking forward to eating that one to the face.

though each game ended almost how I would have predicted it, the whole experience gave me a chance to sit down and dissect the army and how it works. Sadly, I don’t really know what that gained me in the end, as I feel that the inability of Barnabus to mitigate armor or wounds really created a situation where I was desperate from start to finish of both games.

There is a lot yet to figure out with the raiders, and I am pretty sure I am going to be taking them for another spin around the block tomorrow. We will see how that all pans out and whether or not Barnabus can fair any better.

The time is here! Wednesday I will be leaving to head out to Lock and Load, enjoying my one convention I get to go to and play each year.

I’ve not packed, as of yet, so once I’m done writing this, that’s exactly what I am going to do. I am extremely excited to go out there, see old friends and make new ones.

Well, maybe not make any. I’m not sure the Titan Train makes friends.

This does mean, however, that this post isn’t going to be a proper one, and I’m definitively not writing one for Thursday. I’ll Still be in Seattle on Sunday and flying back Monday, so the first real post I’m going to have is next Thursday. While there is a strong likelihood I’ll be gushing about LnL, there is also a significant chance I’ll have done all that I can for a number of days, and I’ll talk about something cool.

Like the Announcement of XCOM2, which has me frothing at the mouth. There may be other announcements and such, but we will see how well I keep up with them.

In addition to a wrap up post, I’ll be Tweeting all weekend about my wins, losses and the players I meet and hang out with, as well as any spoilers I come across.I’ll be trying to snatch up a book as soon as possible, and posting contents, spoilers and other awesomeness. Last year was a little lite, I am going to try and get a few more this time around.

Additionally, Some may have noticed that I am short a Mythology Monday post for the final God, Drakken. Getting players input on their character-turned god is something I want to get right, so we’ll see about that once I get back.

Alright, so, its short and sweet, but I’m excited to get out there, and in order to leave, I’ve got to pack, so I’m out!

Holy Symbol: A Yellow, Clawed hand holding a lidless eye between its thumb and forefinger

Favored Appearances: Salphan prefers the company of those he deems educated and perceptive enough to understand his messages and whispers. To that end, he most often adopts the form of a scholarly elf with generally angular features, graying hair and golden-yellow eyes.The robes that Salphan wears are a dull, pale yellow and are so voluminous as to conceal all most all of his physical form. His hand, as well as his face, are able to be seen clearly. Both forms he takes has the face as the focal point, each exemplifying the most primal and basic concepts of each. The man has a large, powerful forehead and a heavy, dominating brow, much more like a human than an elf. His nose is broken, bent, and flattened, and his deepset eyes glow with vigor and life. The Female has a thin face, with high cheekbones and large, wide eyes shaded with dainty eyebrows and a small, thin forehead. Both have thin, dainty hands best used for writing, with little use for weapons.

Personality: Salphan is quite generous, but he is also fond of mystery and the act of discovering what that mystery means, sometimes providing in strange and mysterious ways which no one understands until after the fact. He loves mystery, but knows nothing about the future, which leads many of his nightmares and dreams to be about discovering the truth about oneself or the past. He is extremely interested in seeing how the current races and peoples handle the truth of the past, where they come from, and what they are meant to be. Quiet, calm and collected, he is the smartest of the hotheads that are the Accursed, and though he speaks rarely, his counsel is often heeded when he does.

Teachings: Salphan teaches that the greatest of revelations comes from learning the truth and understanding the mystery beyond something. The key to these revelations and truth are gleaned from the nightmares and dreams that one experiences, as they are truly the greatest expression of ones inner self. Using these dreams and interpreting them to the highest standards of intellectual pursuit is the quickest and strongest method of empowerment. However, there is much to be feared in dreams and reality, and what some embrace, others fear. Nothing is quite so feared as knowledge that others do not understand, be wary of those who confuse your knowledge with the capacity and desire to do harm

Abode: Salphan lives on the edges of the Accursed lands in the Iron Marches in the Nightmare Spire, a black and bronze edifice of his own construction. the grounds of the spire are an intricate garden of basalt, rust and lead in a thousand razorsharp configurations with only one true path through.

Cultists: The Cult of Salphan hide their true nature not because they believe they are doing anything wrong, but because they find themselves, in their eyes, wrongly persecuted. Interpreters of dreams and nightmares are seen as doing accursed work, and those who experience those same dreams and nightmares are of ill portent themselves. The cultists, however, see themselves as doing the right thing and helping the common person, or perhaps a king or noble of some sort, to more completely understand themselves. Few see the benefit of using the accursed for this type of assistance, but their knowledge and ability to interpret these messages has lead them to be the most accepted of the Accursed Cultists, a terribly held secret within almost all lands.

Knightly Orders: There is a secret society of Warriors of Salphan, the Dreamstriders, who have learned to go into dreams and exist in them for short times. In the Waking World simple minutes have passed, but the dreamstriders have existed for lifetimes in the realm of the dream. In the Dream Relm, however, they seek out the dreams and nightmares of others in order to expand their knowledge and power of the great movers and shakers in the Waking world. Dreams are dangerous places, and they have scoured thousands on thousands and transformed into extremely skilled warriors.

Clerical Attire/colors: Salphans colors are a somber, dull yellow and an iron gray, typically taken together as Iron and Topaz. His followers will almost always wear a single topaz of some sort, often carved into a vague eye, somewhere on their person. Those who flaunt his worship wear a single earring featuring the Iron Eye and Topaz.

Followers: Mages, Clerics and some wiley bards are those who lean furthest to Salphans worship, and the majority are from those professions. Oracles, Soothsayers and other prophets also can end up worshiping him, though it is his ability to know the truth that they seek from him, not the actual future sight itself.

Its been a long, long time since I put up something That I’ve painted, and I figured I’d just toss some models up here, talk a little bit about them, and get on my way!

First, and most obviously foremost, is my Donate or Paint Challenge Model. I was challenged by my buddy Faultie to paint up, in 72 hours, a model or donate money to the cause of one gentleman, Marc Harrison.

This models concept was surprisingly simple: This model should be almost completely black. not just black armor, but black everything. In person, even that purple is almost indistinguishable from black, as are the hose and armor. most of what you see are the base, and flames. Oh, and of course the eyes. I has a blast painting this, and look forward to painting another pair, as they are up next.

My second favorite is a Raluk Moorclaw. I loved his sculpt so much after seeing this guy in my hands that I went out and got one, even though I know his rules are a little wonky and that he is unlikely to see use in even the strangest of lists for both Cryx and Minions.

When I paint a model that not for me, I love to toss a bit of orange in there, no matter what their scheme is. I love painting the color, and have found a huge variety of hues and colors that I can get without much effort. Though I won’t keep him for every long, this model will always be one of my favorite to have painted.

Speaking of paint jobs for other people, I also was able to paint a very enjoyable Morvahnna 2. This model just oozes awesome. I followed the paint scheme given, but managed to sneak my orange in their anyway.

Now, onto my models, Which aren’t many but I am fairly proud of them none the less.

The Fat Man himself, Dominar Rasheth, was the first model I’d painted for myself in many months, and the first Skorne model in possibly years, I don’t remember. Getting back into the groove with painting him was a little bit of a trick, but once I was there he was every bit of fun to paint that I had hoped.

The skin is always the hardest part to get right on these models, because I think I’ve forgotten more ways to paint it than I remember. The green and bone is a simple enough color, but the gold is a giant pain. With the PP solid gold coating terribly, and the need for extremely precise targeting with the paint, I’ve had to give up my favorite gold color and move for a more bronze-gold than the pale gold I initially wanted.

Painted alongside Rasheth, for obvious reasons, was my little adorable agonizer. Though he only took bare minutes to paint, he was a guy I use so often that I wanted to make sure he was taken care of. I’d started him probably three years ago, before I’d discovered a little bit more of what I can do with paints and painting. Now, I’m happy with him.

Then, I put my brush to a caster that was primed, because it was winter, and nothing gets primed in the winter. Makeda 2 was a model I wan’t particularly excited for, and once I started my excitement level dipped even lower. Sometimes, when painting a model your unexcited for that is also not coming out right is to change something up. Simply chaning her shirt from bone to black made her work that much better. In the end, I am pleased with how she came out, and am excited to paint up her second epic incarnation and see how she comes out as well.

After I finished her up, I took a venture into my bag and came out with some models that I had started way back when, and wanted to finish. This was before, like the Agonizer, I had learned a few new techniques like blending properly, mixing colors correctly, and a bit of patience. First to come out of the bag was Aptimus Marketh, a model I love in almost every situation. he took a bit of work to bring up to mediocre standards, but I wasn’t about to paint him up again.

Finally, and I just finished these two up on Saturday, were my Tyrant Commander and Standard Bearer. Both were frustrating to paint, again coming from a time that made me have to just straight up repaint a number of the models features, but also because they are insanely Skorneish: All that filigree is insanely complicated. I’m not a fan at all. At least the Tyrant Commander has useful rules and a fantastic model. The Standard bearer, while nice in a pinch just isn’t a model I am putting front and center every game. He almost killed my will to paint…

With all of that going on, I had time to do a little stupid Conversion. I love Darragh Wrath, and I love scythes, but the scythe on Darragh just wasn’t impressive enough for me. So, I found a pair of those old GW Zombie weapons and carefully made that weapon look scary as hell. I love it.

Do you know how hard it is not to go back to Cryx right now?

Even with all of that done, I’ve got a loaded painting table. I’ve pledged to have a fully painted tier 2 theme list for Lock and Load, to milk the most out of the Iron Arena Games I play, hoping for a Hydra or other awesome art print. In order to do that, I’ve got a Bronzeback, a Gladiator, a unit of Bonegrinders I don’t even own yet, and a Pain Giver Task Master. Additionally, I’ve decided to paint a caster a month, and up next is Mordikaar. Last, but certinaly not least, I’ve still got two exchange models I am going to paint up. One for Aggyfaces Legion of Ice and Fire, and one for my buddy Mike, who painted me a ginger Caliban!